With summer days stretching ahead, and our gardens nicely on their way, every gardener needs a break once in a while! Maybe it’s time to pick up those gardening magazines or books that you haven’t had a chance to look at since yard work began this spring!
On a recent trip to the library (a wonderful resource, with a great selection of gardening and landscaping books!) I chose a book called “The Prairie Short Season Yard” by Lyndon Penner. The subtitle on the inside page is “Quick and Beautiful on the Canadian Prairies”.
It there’s one thing prairie gardeners don’t have a lot of, it’s time! Our season is so very short, so I was interested to hear what Lyndon suggested for us! In his introduction he tells us that he was raised north of Saskatoon, and from an early age helped his Mom and his Grandma in the garden. As he says, “An interest became a hobby, a hobby became a passion, a passion became an obsession, and an obsession became my career.”
I really liked the way he said that “a garden is a living, breathing work of art”. I also liked that he said “You should be able to go away for a week in the summer without your garden completely falling apart.” I liked what I was hearing!
Lyndon makes many great points in his book, and I‘d love to tell you about each and every one! But I’ll pick one thing that I know many of us are interested in: drought-resistant plants.
We’ve chatted about xeriscaping before, and while the last few years have been soggy, to say the least, we know that at some point the weather cycle will change. So here is the top twenty list of drought resistant plants that Lyndon Penner suggests for us!
Blue flax: beautiful blue flowers, and will self-sow. Blue Oat Grass: medium-sized, blue foliage, and looks good in winter. Cactus: the prickly pear cactus is perfect for a hot, dry location or for a slope. Caragana: a prairie favorite that comes in globe or columnar shapes. Cotoneaster: fast growing, great fall color, and requires no care (unless you choose to cut it as a hedge). False Spirea: fast growing, leafs out early, and will grow in sun or shade. But it does sucker so keep that in mind. Gaillardia: also called blanket flower; blooms all summer and attracts butterflies. Hens and Chicks: a good groundcover for hot areas and will hatch new babies. Juniper: choose hardy ones for our area and do not crowd them. Lilacs: beautiful and so many varieties; hardy and long-lived.
Okay, there are the first ten! Let’s keep going! Meadow sage: is a salvia, and attracts bees and hummingbirds. Mock Orange: has lovely flowers and can take really dry conditions. Mugo pine: tough and also “architecturally interesting”. Potentilla: tough little shrubs that bloom and can take heat and drought. Russian Almond: pink flowers in the spring, drought tolerant and low maintenance. Russian sage: tall, grey-green foliage, blue flowers, and likes hot sunny location. Sea Holly: will grow in poor soil, produces spiky flowers, and attracts bees. Spirea: great for hedges or borders and attracts bees. Yarrow: blooms all summer and can take poor soil. Yucca: structurally interesting.
What a great list! I would heartily recommend that you borrow this book from the library; it’s full of all kinds of practical information that applies specifically to prairie gardeners. A wonderful read!
Be sure to visit the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society website at www.yorktonhort.ca and see what’s new. Have a lovely week!
